Samjhauta: NIA wants to take evidence to Hyderabad

Panchkula (Haryana): The NIA on Thursday sought
permission of special court here to allow Central Forensic
Sciences Laboratory experts to take material evidence
collected in Samjhauta train blast case to Hyderabad facility
for examination and comparison with samples collected in other
terror attacks.
"In pursuance to the observations and inspection report
prepared by the CFSL team, we moved an application here in the
court of District and Sessions Judge Subhash Mehla, requesting
that the sealed exhibits of the Samjhauta blast case, may be
allowed to be send to the sophisticated CFSL centre at
Hyderabad for examination and comparison with the other blast
materials," senior advocate R K Handa, NIA`s Special Public
Prosecutor in the Samjhauta case, said.

He said that the court, which is hearing the Samjhauta
case, had issued notice for September 27 when the counsel of
the accused can put forward their objections, if any.

Handa said the NIA informed the court today that CFSL
experts were not in favour of unsealing the Samjhauta blast
evidence here, citing that comparison and examination can
properly be done only at their laboratory at Hyderabad.

A CFSL team, which had on September 20 arrived on a
two-day inspection of the blast material evidence of Samjhauta
case at Sector 5 police lines here, had yesterday decided not
to unseal the evidence.

Handa, who along with Chetan Sharma, another counsel of
the NIA, was present in the court today, said the CFSL team
observed in their report that comparison of the 29 articles of
the Samjhauta Express train blast materials with other blast
materials including in Malegaon, Hyderabad and Ajmer blasts,
requires a "thorough analytical examination and various tests
and sophisticated instruments, which would be only possible if
all the exhibits of the Samjhauta case were simultaneously
examined with the others at Hyderabad".
Following a direction of Punjab and Haryana High Court,
the court hearing charges against Swami Assemanand and four
other accused in the 2007 Samjhauta case had allowed forensic
experts to examine the sealed material on September 20-21.

The judge here had last week adjourned the case till
October 10, when arguments on the charges will be taken up.

Earlier this month, the High Court had dismissed a
petition filed by Aseemanand challenging orders of NIA special
judge, Panchkula, permitting the agency to unseal the seized
material in Samjhauta blast case in the presence of counsel
for the accused.

The NIA had informed the high court that trial courts
at Mumbai, Hyderabad and Jaipur had already granted it
permission for making comparison of material found at the
blast sites and the initial exercise at all three places has
been done by CFSL experts.

In the charge sheet filed before the vacation court of
additional district and sessions judge, the NIA had accused
the five of hatching a criminal conspiracy which resulted in
bomb blasts in the train.

Aseemanand and Sharma are already in judicial custody
in Ambala jail.

Apart from Ajmer Dargah blast, which claimed three
lives and left 15 others injured, Aseemanand and Lokesh Kumar
Sharma are accused in several other blast cases across the
country, including those at Hyderabad`s Mecca Masjid and
Malegaon.